CJB: I sure am. Making fun of you, that is. You seem to be talking without thinking, without any first-hand knowledge of the subjects you're discussing. Your pose of "environmental consciousness" seems rooted in a self-righteousness and arrogance that puts mine to shame.

WFH #2: Well I won't be shopping here.

CJB: You sure won't. Get outta here.

Three days later I'm still mad at a consciousness -- no matter how young; no matter how naive -- that can dismiss Nevada, one of the loveliest places I've ever visited; one of the only places I've ever felt at home -- as a relative of Stein's Oakland, no there there. This is at its heart a conservative, colonial worldview, one that finds surprising parallels with Allan McEachern's racist description of British Columbia as an unpopulated "vast emptiness." And as Chris C., the shop's manager, points out, the book is one of the most environmentally friendly technologies ever devised. When a book wears out, it goes in the blue box. When a computer (or a Sony e-reader, or a Kindle, or an iPhone) wears out, it goes to a special segregated recycling facility, where its plastics, heavy metals, lithium batteries, etc. are contained and only partially recovered.
- posted by cjb @ 7:21 PM